


After the First Death

by Sondra



Series: Post-Star One Trilogy [3]
Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-20
Updated: 2011-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-22 20:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sondra/pseuds/Sondra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blake is now firmly entrenched in his role as a bounty hunter. Increasingly unable to cope with the changes in him, Jenna leaves for Domo -- where she stumbles across information that sends her running back to Gauda Prime. Covers the time from just before "Warlord" to just before "Blake". A sequel to "Aftermath: Blake's Story" and "Par For the Curse".</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the First Death

"You, who shall emerge from the flood  
In which we are sinking,  
Think--  
When you speak of our weaknesses,  
Also of the dark time  
That brought them forth..."  
                          --Bertolt Brecht

 

Roj Blake squinted beneath the bright glare of the midday sun peeking through the trees of the Gauda Prime forest and wiped the sweat from his brow. Shielding his eyes with his hand, he pivoted slowly from side to side, searching for some sign of his quarry. Or his quarry's other hunter.

When he'd left base at dawn that morning, it was in pursuit of the same fugitive Tando was following. The man's data sheet had pegged him as a common run-of-the-mill smuggler, dealing mostly in drugs from out-of-the-way pleasure planets. Not the sort Blake would ordinarily have cared about. Certainly not the sort he'd have ordinarily challenged Tando over. Except for one small detail: Deva's computer had insisted that no one fitting this smuggler's description existed under the name carried on his record. Which meant the name was an alias.

Just as "Foster", the name Tando knew _him_ by, was an alias. Blake had adopted that pseudonym a year and a half earlier when he'd first set up his bounty hunter identity. He chose it to honor a man he'd known long ago on Earth, a rebel who had died for the cause of freedom, a rebel who had given _him_ back his _true_ identity after the Federation had ripped it from his memory.

As for his prey of the moment – it was just possible that man, too, had political reasons for concealing his identity. And if the name on the data sheet was false, the rest of the information it contained might be also. It was a possibility worth looking into.

Looking, Blake thought wryly, as he continued to pivot in a wider arc than most men would have required. Well, even if I had two working eyes, there's not a bloody thing to see between here and –

A sudden piercing scream cut into his thoughts. He whirled in the direction from which it had come, whipping out his gun and taking off after the sound in a single fluid motion. He had a damn good idea of what – whom – he'd find when he got there, and he cursed as he ran, recalling words he'd once uttered on Earth to a group of Sula Chesku's rebels:  "What's the matter with you people? Don't you care what kind of slime you allow on your team?"

 _It's not the same_ , he'd told himself a hundred times, _Tando and I aren't on the same team._ But when payday rolled around, he stood next to Tando in the same payment line and accepted blood money from the same tainted hands...

Guided by continued screams, he arrived finally at their source: the battered, bloody form of a man lying on the forest floor, gasping in pain as an armed assailant crouched over him, smashing his face with the butt of a gun.

"Where is it?" Tando was shouting. "Where'd you hide your stash?" His heavy boots joined in the attack, kicking viciously at ribs and groin.

Blake panted to a halt and watched without saying a word. The victim did not answer his tormentor's questions. Impressive behavior for a common criminal. Too impressive...

Finally Blake made his presence known. "Thinking to collect on both sides of the street, are you, Tando?" And then with mounting menace, as the bounty hunter turned in his direction, "Step away from him – now!"

Tando followed Blake's instructions with a leisurely air, as if to proclaim that he was obeying the order only because it amused him to do so. "Foster," he said with a sneer. "Fancy finding you here. But I found this one first. Caulder's mine."

"Not if I tell our paymasters that you intended to take over the man's business yourself."

"That'd be your word against mine, Mate."

"Not quite." With a predatory smile, Blake reached into his pocket and pulled out a miniature recording device. "I have it all on tape, Mate – even the screams."

Tando's face tightened in response to the other man's mocking parody of his coarse manner of speech. He eyed momentarily the gun hanging from his hand, as if calculating the odds of outshooting his competitor, then bowed to the reality of the advantage which Blake's already aimed weapon gave him. "What do you propose then?"

"I'll trade you," Blake said amiably. "The tape for the prisoner."

"Don't guess I have much choice."

"Don't guess you do."

"Give it here then."

Blake tossed the tiny machine in Tando's direction. The bounty hunter caught it, turned as if to go, and then suddenly spun around, his gun positioned to fire.

Blake was faster. The loud sound of a discharging projectile weapon crackled in the air, and Tando's gun exploded in his hand. He dropped it, spewing forth a barrage of colorful expletives.

"Next time it will _be_ your hand," Blake promised coldly. He kicked the damaged weapon aside. "In fact, next time I just might have to kill you."

Tando snickered. "It has been tried."

"Multiple times, I should imagine, if even a fraction of those with sufficient cause had sufficient courage."

"Sufficient courage, maybe," the man retorted, "but obviously not sufficient skill."

"Don't ever make the mistake of thinking me deficient in either," Blake warned. 

When he had first begun working beside men like Tando, they had been dubious of his very claim to be a bounty hunter, doubting that a man without binocular vision could handle a gun. But Blake had practiced assiduously to compensate for that handicap and had ended up astonishing the hunters of human flesh whose ranks he'd infiltrated, earning their professional respect.

"Now clear out of here," he concluded, "before I change my mind and make it this time."

With a parting look of loathing and a parting contemptuous kick at Caulder, Tando stalked off.

Blake waited until he was out of sight, then knelt beside the man on the ground and matter-of-factly began examining his injuries. The man blinked at him through pain-filled eyes and rasped, "Thank you."

"Don't thank me," he responded. "You may yet live to wish I had let him finish you off. You see, we're in the same line of work, he and I. My name is Blake."

At that revelation, the prisoner began to smile, a look of relief replacing one of tension and barely masked fear. "And mine," he said, "is Hunda."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *

Jenna Stannis folded the last of the clothes she was packing into the open suitcase on her bed and snapped the cover shut. The single bed had been stripped of its sheets as well, and the bare mattress looked even smaller and lonelier than it usually did. "No more," she whispered hotly. "From now on it's double beds and someone to share them with." _Even if it's not him_.

"Jenna?" called a voice from the doorway.

"Come in, Blake."

He stepped across the threshold. "Deva said you wanted to see me."

"How's the man you rescued from Tando this morning?"

"Recovering in the infirmary. Klyn's looking after him, but he hasn't regained consciousness yet."

"I thought you said he was conscious."

"Just long enough to tell me his name and that he has important information for us from Avalon. Didn't Deva mention that I needed his help getting Hunda out of the flyer?"

Jenna shook her head. "I suspect I didn't give him the chance."

"Yes, well, he came 'round again after he was settled in his bed and mumbled something about needing to rendezvous with a pickup ship in five days – an SR-14, if you can believe that."

Jenna smiled at the mention of the antiquated model. "A Star Rover, eh? Maybe he was delirious."

"No, there are still a handful of them flying about."

"If you call that flying."

"Anyway, Klyn is keeping him heavily sedated. She estimates it will be a couple of days before he's well enough to be questioned at length." For the first time, Blake noticed the suitcase.  "Packed for your run to Domo, I see."

Jenna nodded silently.

"Well, I hope you'll be back before Hunda leaves. According to what Deva's been able to gather from monitoring Federation communications, he's quite an asset to the resistance. Comes from a planet called Helotrix and has been making life there very uncomfortable for our enemies."

"Which is more than you can say for us, stuck on this backwater planet and cut off from the rest of the network."

He bristled at the bitterness in her voice. "We've been over this before, Jenna--"

"Oh yes, indeed we have."

"With Gauda Prime embarked on a course to restore legality and reaffiliate with the Federation, it was necessary for this operation to sever all external ties with the resistance. We're not the only ones who can eavesdrop on interplanetary communications. The risk of the Federation discovering exactly who is pulling the strings here would have been just too great."

"It's not healthy, Blake, this isolation – that's all I know. It's not healthy for you, and it's certainly not healthy for me." She paused and took a deep breath. "And that's why I've decided to leave."

"What?!"

"I'm opting out.  This run to Domo is my last."

"You can't be serious."

"I've never been more so."

He laughed disparagingly. "Just because we can no longer talk to Avalon and Ro and President Sarkoff? Oh come now, I should think not being able to talk to _Tyce_ Sarkoff would be a plus in your book."

Jenna sighed and shook her head. "That's why, Blake – at least that's a sign of why. That you can make light of the situation, that you don't even realize how much you've changed."

 _You're wrong, Jenna. I do realize it. It's you who doesn't realize why I've changed. But then, how could you? I've never told you..._

"Ever since we returned from that trip to Earth that was supposed to be the start of our final victory. Ever since Sula died in her failed attempt to overthrown Servalan..."

 _Yes, indeed, Jenna. Ever since. Well, at least we agree on when I changed._

"The worst of it is, you don't see how pathetic our struggle has become, how futile, how hopeless."

"We're not alone, Jenna."

"We may as well be."

"Our allies are still out there fighting."

"Maybe! Maybe, Blake. But we'll never know, will we, cut off like this. And if someone out there does win some kind of victory against the Federation, we won't have been a part of it."

"Maybe we'll learn something when Hunda regains consciousness."

"It doesn't matter, don't you see? It's too late for that – too late for me..."

"So you're just going to walk away and wash your hands of it all?" Anger blazed in his voice and in his eyes.

"That's right!" she hissed.

"And where will you go?"

"I'm not sure yet. Some place – any place – where I have a chance to just be happy." 

The anger in his eyes turned to pain: a deep, seemingly bottomless hurt that tugged at her heart. It was as if he were torn between wanting to accuse her of betrayal and recognizing that he had no right to.

And it was enough to trigger an upwelling of all her old feelings for him. "Come with me," she urged suddenly.

"What?"

"Come away with me." She grabbed his arm. "Oh please, Blake, you deserve a chance at happiness, too."

He freed himself from her hold. In a voice full of awkwardness, he stammered, "Jenna, I'm flattered, really I am, that you –"

"Oh, forget it!" She glared at him with disgust, bordering on contempt.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled.

"Tell me this," she said, "would you leave with Avon?"

He stared at her as if she'd lost her mind. "With Avon?  In case you haven't noticed, he isn't here. And if he were, it's hardly likely he'd ask."

"But if he did – "

"No!"

Jenna laughed unpleasantly. "You know what? I believe you. I wouldn't have once, but I do now. Considering the way you abandoned him on the _Liberator_."

Blake pulled back as if she'd struck him. "He was all right. We know that."

"We know he survived," she corrected. "It's not exactly the same thing."

"What – you think he needed me to chase after him and hold his hand? That's ridiculous. Since when did you start acting as Avon's advocate anyway?"

"Since _you_ stopped?" _Tell me, Blake. What aren't you telling me, Blake? For the love of God, why won't you tell me, Blake? It's our last chance..._

The rebel leader looked at his chrono. "Isn't it about time you were leaving?"

"Right."

"So I'll get out of your way. As for your other plans, we can discuss them when you return from Domo." His tone had softened, and he was looking at her with that half-innocent, half-arrogant impish grin she knew so well.

She avoided his eyes. "Yes, all right."

He started through the door, then swung back. "And, Jenna – be careful."

"It's a routine run," she replied, still staring at the floor. "And the man I'm going to lift is a friend."

"That's what I meant," Blake said ominously.

When he'd finally gone, Jenna slammed the door shut behind him. "Damn that man! He still gets to me." 

Face it, Jenna, he'll always get to you. If you return here, he'll find some way to talk you out of leaving again. 

"That settles it then. I won't return."

I'll be doing Hazari a favor, too, not bringing him into this hopeless setup. Of course Blake won't appreciate my making off with the Mark 10, but it's not as if he or any of the rest of this lot can use it, and as Avon would say, it's fair payment for all the time I've put in. 

And Blake certainly can't condemn me for walking away without saying goodbye. Blake can't condemn anyone for doing _that._

*          *          *          *          *          *          *

The operational hub of the Gauda Prime Relegalization Dispatch Center, as it was euphemistically called, was a compound within a compound. The "legitimate" bounty hunters who received their assignments from, and delivered their captured quarry to, the Center never actually entered the tracking gallery, nor the suite of private offices off its corridor, nor the small infirmary maintained in that wing of the building. They had no reason to do so and would have been suspicious if they'd ever observed "Foster" entering the area, but he was careful to insure that they never did.

The infirmary was one place they didn't even know existed. After all, they delivered their prey dead or alive: if dead, there was no need for medical treatment, and if alive, but injured, there was still no need since "damaged goods" commanded the same price as undamaged, and money spent to repair such damage would ultimately be money subtracted from their fees...

Deva had accompanied Blake to the infirmary, and they were sitting outside the medical wing proper, waiting for Klyn – who held the monopoly on medical training within their ranks – to emerge from Hunda's room.

"Jenna get off all right?" Deva asked.

"I presume so."

Blake's crafted non-chalance did not escape his companion's notice. "Who's this recruit she's bringing back?"

"An old acquaintance from her Free Trader days. He's apparently been working with the slavers on Domo for several years after a falling out with his clan. Now he's fallen out with the slavers as well and wants off-planet. He managed to get a message to Jenna during her last run to that star system, and she promised to pick him up."

"An ex-slaver in the rebellion?"

"Getting fussy, aren't we? You know what they say, Deva – " But in the back of his mind was that nagging echo: What's the matter with you people? Don't you care what kind of slime you allow on your team?

"Actually, I don't know what they say."

"He for whom the world is not good enough will sooner or later find himself shoulder to shoulder with he who is not good enough for the world."

"I've never heard that."

"It's from an Old Calendar text."

"Proscribed, no doubt."

Blake chuckled. "It's not for certain he's coming here anyway. Jenna plans to invite him, and if he says yes – well, then I'll look him over."

"You'll have to modify your testing procedures somewhat."

Deva's ironic tone did not escape Blake's notice. "Don't worry – I'm adaptable," he responded in kind.

"Why do I get the feeling you mean _too_ adaptable?" Deva murmured.

He wasn't sure Blake had heard him, didn't really expect an answer and was surprised when he got one – of sorts. "The other day with Hunda – Tando was practically torturing him. I stood there and watched without doing anything because I was calculating the odds that a man who could endure that kind of abuse was more than a common smuggler. I was even thinking that a man who could endure that kind of abuse would make a worthy recruit. So I did nothing to stop it."

"For how long?"

"Oh, not long.  A minute maybe – that's not the point, Deva. The point is that once I would have waded into Tando and hauled him off his victim _without_ thinking. No matter who the victim was." _At Central Security Headquarters on Earth I did precisely that. The man I intervened to save was himself an accomplice of torturers, and I still did that..._

"It sounds to me like you're not too happy with the change. Maybe you're finally realizing what I've been trying to tell you all along – that these tests aren't necessary – "

"But they are necessary! I just despise what that necessity is turning me into."

 _You're not the only one._ "Then why not trust your intuition the way you did the day Klyn and I first met you? I still shudder to think what might have happened if you hadn't trusted us, hadn't stepped between me and that gun Jenna was pointing at my crotch."

"But I've learned since then that intuition is not infallible."

"Yours used to look pretty damn near infallible to me – "

"Well, you were wrong!" Blake looked suddenly guilty as he remembered where they were and lowered his voice. "Sometimes the people you trust the most, the people you think you can trust with anything, let you down in ways you never dreamed possible." _And yet if he walked through that door this minute, I would throw doubt to the winds. I would open my heart to him._

"It's something to do with Avon, isn't it?"

Blake flinched. "Why do you say that?"

"Because ever since you and Jenna got back from that failed mission to Earth last year, you've stopped talking about him the way you used to do."

Maybe you're the one with the infallible intuition, Blake thought wryly, not even hearing what Deva said next, hearing only what he _had_ said again: It's something to do with Avon, isn't it?

 _It's everything to do with Avon, my friend. With Avon my friend. With Avon whom I trusted like I trusted my own heart. If it hadn't been for him, I'd have been dead a dozen times over._

 _And if it hadn't been for him, Sula's coup would have succeeded. He murdered her. He freed Servalan from the rebels. He snapped the first link in a chain of events that would have led to the freedom of the galaxy. WHY? In the name of suffering humanity, will I ever know why?_

Ironically, there'd been a successful coup several months later – but not by rebels. Servalan's overthrow and the subsequent news of her death in battle on the planet Gedden was one of the few pieces of information readily available through scanning public Federation vis-casts. Blake wasn't certain he believed the reports of her death, but either way, the Federation remained firmly in power and no less oppressive for her absence from its highest office.

It would have been different if the rebels had been the ones to depose her. If, if, if... a word only slightly less painful than "why?" _And yet if he walked through that door this minute..._

It was Klyn who walked through the door. "You can see him now, Blake," she said.

Without questioning her further, the rebel leader rose and headed for Hunda's room.

Klyn turned to Deva. "It's getting worse for him all the time. Sometimes I find it difficult to believe he's the same man we pulled off the _Liberator_ two years ago."

"Oh, he's the same man all right," Deva declared, "a man who'll make any personal sacrifice for the cause he's pledged himself to. The thing is, for most of us, our lives are the greatest sacrifice we'll ever be asked to make. With Blake, it's his soul."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *

"You're looking much better," Blake said to the man in the bed, pleased to discover Hunda sitting up, with only taped ribs and an assorted mass of purple welts on his face to show for his run-in with Tando.

Hunda looked at him impassively and said, "You took your time."

The rebel leader blinked with some astonishment. "I was told you weren't up to answering questions."

"I mean, out there in the forest."

A tense stillness settled over the room. "Oh. Yes. You're right. I did."

"Why?"

For a fleeting instant Blake felt as if he were staring at his own mirror image and hearing his own words boomeranged back at him in stinging accusation. "I was evaluating how you handled yourself," he said with brutal honesty. "I didn't know who you were, Hunda. If I'd known who you were – "

"If you'd known who I was," the one-time, would-be, alter-Blake cut in smoothly, "it would have mattered less that you waited."

"Point taken," Blake conceded crisply. "Still I was impressed that you didn't answer Tando."

Hunda laughed, cutting himself off abruptly in mid-chuckle as that indulgence exacted its price. "What could I answer? He wanted my drug stash. There wasn't any."

"You could have told him that."

"I tried, believe me. _He_ didn't believe me. Look, it wasn't keeping silent that was difficult – it was keeping still." Blake frowned in non-comprehension. "I could have taken that barbarian out at any time." The frown became a look of skepticism. "Well, perhaps not at _any_ time," Hunda admitted. "Not by the end. But in the beginning – but it's not what I came here to do," he concluded simply.

Blake pulled over a chair and sat down. "So what did you come here to do?"

"Find you. Avalon and I figured the discrepancies in my file would be sufficient to attract your attention. I just hoped you would be the one to make the capture. Failing that, I hoped that whoever did would deliver me into Deva's custody."

"Ah – that's why the price for you alive was listed as double the price for you dead."

"Exactly."

"Well, I did make the capture – after a minor detour. So, why precisely did you need to find me?"

"To warn you, Blake. And I had to come in person because we couldn't risk any of the normal channels of communication. Indeed, less now than ever."

"Still it must be one hell of a warning to merit this." Blake gestured toward the other man's injuries. "Not to mention the risk you took running the blockade."

"Yes, whose gunships were those, anyway? They weren't quite up to Federation standards, and if I've understood correctly, the Federation hasn't yet accepted Gauda Prime's petition for restoration of legal status, in any case."  

"That's only a matter of time now," Blake said. "The formal petition was filed with the High Council last week. GP's been working at meeting the necessary criteria for over a year, and a Federation representative will probably be sent here in the very near future to make it official. The gunships are to the spaceways what Tando and I and the rest of this dubious lot are here on the ground – an effort to keep the criminal element out. They're manned by mercenaries who were hired by the same group of representatives from the various plantations who petitioned for a return to legality in the first place."

"I see."

"So cut to the chase already. What are you here to warn me about?"

Hunda took a deep breath. "Avalon has reason to believe that the Federation suspects the Gauda Prime cleanup operation, suspects that it's harboring a rebel enclave, possibly even suspects that you yourself are at the center of it. If she's right, they could be planning to send someone here to infiltrate your base."

Blake's mouth tightened. "And what does Avalon believe has led them to this suspicion?"

"A breach of security on our side, obviously."

"But no one knows what I'm doing here except the people here with me, the ones I recruit and Avalon herself." He cracked a wry smile. "And, of course, you."

"Yes, well – " Hunda hesitated, fearful of the reaction his next statement might trigger. "We think the most likely source of the leak _is_ one of the people you've recruited, someone you shipped off-planet who subsequently 'turned' – or was captured and broke during interrogation," he added hastily, in response to a sudden piercing glare from Blake. At least the last scenario could not be construed as reflecting upon Blake's judgment.

The rebel leader said nothing, sat staring at the floor with an inscrutable expression on his face.

"You must be doubly careful from here on in," Hunda said quietly.

"Two times infinity is still infinity."

"What?"

Blake finally looked up. "I am meticulous in checking people out."

Hunda resisted the obvious retort. "Except once" might have been clever, but hardly tactful and, by his own admission, possibly not accurate. "I meant careful about yourself," he clarified. "Are you always so open about revealing your name?"

"I am when I think I've found a potential recruit. Seeing how they react to it is part of my evaluation procedure. Look, the ordinary criminal with no political leanings isn't apt to recognize the name. Not after all this time. Not this far out."

"You can't be sure of that."

"Tell me about Helotrix."

Hunda did a doubletake at Blake's sudden attempt to change the subject. "Look, I'm not here to boast about my exploits. I'm here to try to protect yours. If we lose you – "

"It wouldn't be such a great loss." The Helot's eyes widened in growing alarm. "Listen," Blake continued, "Deva was never publicly known as a rebel. Neither was Klyn. They're not on any Federation wanted list. Their cover as part of the official setup would hold even if the Federation found me. If they find me, I'll say that I acted alone, that I deceived all the others."

"And you'll stick to that story when they start making Tando's little routine look like kiddie fisticuffs."

"Yes, I will!"

Extraordinary man, Hunda thought. He's probably capable of it, too. Still that was no longer the sole measure of things, hadn't been since... "And if they subject you – and Deva – and Klyn – to Pylene-50?"

"To what?"

Hunda couldn't believe his ears. "You really are out of touch, aren't you? Perhaps I had better tell you about Helotrix, after all..."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *

The town of Tabreez was what passed for the center of culture and civilization amidst the sands of Domo. Containing the planet's only spaceport and a moderately fashionable hotel where the agents of off-world slave buyers congregated during the hustle and bustle of Domo's periodic auctions, it was far quieter now.

Jenna was glad to be arriving at a time when no auction was imminent. She would have hated to be reminded that the friend she had come here to collect bore the taint of complicity in that ghastly enterprise. She preferred to remember him as the innocent and idealistic teenager he had been when Tarvin introduced her to him on Zolaf 4... Just as she preferred to remember Blake the way _he_ had been when she'd first known him on the _London_. Or on the _Liberator_. Or even on Gauda Prime in the beginning. 

Give it time, she told herself. With enough time and distance, you will remember him that way again.

Walking through the mostly deserted lounge and bar on her way to the registration desk, she noticed a middle-aged woman sitting alone at a corner table, sipping a drink and eyeing her intently. The woman wore an intricately decorated headdress, heavy blue eye shadow and multiple rings on the fingers of both hands. As Jenna passed by, she lifted her glass in a kind of proprietary salute that gave the pilot an uneasy feeling.

"Don't mind Verlis," whispered the clerk behind the counter. "She doesn't know what to do with herself between auctions."

"She looks like she's appraising me as auction material," Jenna whispered back.

The man laughed. "Probably is. The habit of selling people is hard to break. No need to worry, though. Verlis _only_ sells 'em. The rounding up is left to the slavers, and if you stay in town, no one'll touch you. It's an unwritten rule, but it's usually honored."

"Usually" fell a little short of Jenna's idea of security. She patted her gun for reassurance. "Thanks for the advice. Listen, I'm here to meet a friend. His name is Hazari."

The clerk didn't seem to recognize the name, and Jenna thought briefly that that was odd. Surely a slaver who'd been around for several years would be well-known... But she didn't have time to ponder the matter for he rapidly located the name in his register and gave her the room number.

With a smile of appreciation and a backward glance at Verlis (who was still watching her), Jenna took the lift to the third floor and knocked on the door to Room 313. "Come in," called a robust male voice, and again she had a fleeting sense that something was amiss. It didn't sound like Hazari's voice. But of course he'd sound much older now...

He'd look much older, too – but the man waiting to welcome her wasn't the man she'd come to meet altered by any number of years. Sitting in the center of the room's king-sized bed, dressed in traditional Amagon garb, was a man who bore an eerie resemblance to the late, unlamented Tarvin – and he was aiming a laser rifle straight at her heart.

"Close the door, Jenna Stannis," he ordered. She kicked it shut behind her. "Now remove that pathetic toy from your gunbelt and toss it to me very carefully."

Breathing hard, but struggling to remain calm, she did as she was told. "Where's Hazari?" she asked.

The stranger shrugged. "How should I know? He left us as soon as he was old enough to steal a ship. Left behind a tape saying it was the last thing he'd ever steal. We haven't heard a word from him since. And none of us miss him."

"I'm sure the feeling is mutual!" Jenna shot back. "I should have known better than to believe that Hazari would ever throw in his lot with slavers. But if he didn't send me that message, who did?"

"Who do you think?" snarled the pirate. "Oh, I've been on your trail for a long time, Woman."

"Why? I don't even know you – "

"You knew my brother!" came the angry retort. "You killed my brother!"

Suddenly it all made a kind of sickening sense. "Tarvin!" Jenna exclaimed. "You're Tarvin's – ?"

"Shamir Tarvin," the man supplied. "That's right, Woman, and I have a blood feud to settle with you."

Jenna licked at her lips and put out her hands placatingly. "Listen to me – you've been badly misinformed."

"I don't think so."

"I didn't kill your brother. It was – " She stopped herself just in time; a fraction of a second more and Sarkoff's name would have rolled off her tongue. _Good work, Jenna. Give the nice lunatic another target to chase._ "It was – someone else."

Tarvin stood up and sauntered over to her, flashing his weapon flamboyantly. "It may be that someone else pulled the trigger," he conceded. "If so, you shall tell me who that was before we're finished" – and Jenna swallowed hard as the implied threat sent a shiver of panic through her. "But you betrayed him," Tarvin continued. "You pretended to strike a deal with him for the _Liberator_ and Blake's rebels, and you were just playing him along the whole time."

"Even if that were so," Jenna stalled, "and I'm not saying it is, how could you possibly know such a thing?"

"Because I was the middleman who arranged the rendezvous with the Federation!" The pirate paused, stormclouds of anger darkening his eyes. "You see, you didn't just rob me of a brother. YOU CHEATED ME OUT OF MY CUT OF THE PROFITS!"

Jenna fought the urge to flinch as he hovered over her menacingly. "And so now you're going to kill me," she concluded.

"That's one possibility."

"There's another?"

"I could do what my brother originally planned to do – and would have done if he hadn't fallen for your deceit. I imagine the Federation would still pay handsomely for your lovely head on a platter."

Jenna emitted a perverse little laugh. "What goes 'round comes 'round, I suppose."

"You find the thought of being delivered to your enemies by a bounty hunter amusing?"

"I find it – ironic."

"Yes, well – I can decide that later. First there's the little matter of the person you say actually killed my brother."

"That person is dead now," Jenna blurted quickly.

"How convenient for him," Tarvin sneered. "And how very inconvenient for you."

 _He doesn't believe me. He's going to get rough about it. Well, there isn't a whole lot he can do to me here by himself. It'll be nasty, but manageable. Maybe it'll even give me a chance to overpower him. I can pretend to be more badly injured than I am, and then..._

As her mind schemed frantically, she watched Tarvin move back towards the bed. How predictable. Any minute now he would order her to take off her clothes. Perhaps she could fling them at him, throw him off balance, knock the gun from his hand –

"Put this on."

Startled, Jenna stared at the object he was holding. She'd been so busy trying to outguess him, she hadn't even seen him reach into his satchel and pull it out.

But she recognized it. Oh, she recognized it. That time when the Amagons had boarded the _Liberator_ , they'd slapped a collar like that around the neck of each of their prisoners. It had explosives embedded in it – explosives which Tarvin could detonate at the touch of a button – and once she was wearing it, it would be nearly impossible for anyone else to remove it safely.

She couldn't afford to wait any longer. She had to make her move now. If she bungled it, at least the end would come quickly. Maybe she'd even manage to take him with her. What was that expression Cally liked to use? "Companions for my death..."

Tarvin held out the collar, and Jenna reached for it. As her fingers closed around it, she pulled hard to one side, knocking him off balance, then she lunged for his rifle. The collar fell to the floor, and they began wrestling for control of the gun. Jenna kicked at Tarvin's shins, tried without success to knee him in the groin, and in final desperation, sunk her teeth into his hand.

He yelped in a mixture of pain and anger, but he didn't release his hold on the gun. In fact, it was she who lost her grip on it, and he smacked her with it, hurling her to the floor. When she looked up, dazed and breathless, he was pointing it at her. "To hell with the bounty!" he thundered. "I'd rather have the pleasure of killing you myself!"

She watched his finger tighten on the trigger and closed her eyes as the shot rang out...

 

And now the pain. Only there wasn't any. Just a voice gasping in pain. Only it wasn't hers... 

Bewildered, Jenna opened her eyes and stared in astonishment as Tarvin dropped his rifle, staggered backward a few steps, and then crashed to the floor, blood oozing from his belly.

Turning slowly in the direction of the doorway, she beheld a tall, lean, regally attired black man, aiming a projectile weapon in the direction of the crimson-stained corpse.

"Are you all right?" he inquired calmly.

She opened her mouth to answer and closed it again, her continued shock temporarily preventing any speech.

"Let me help you," he offered, extending a hand.

She grabbed it with both of hers and pulled herself to her feet. "I'd say you've already helped me quite a lot. In fact, I'd say I'm in your debt – whoever you are."

"Chalsa," he stated proudly. "First Lord and Ruler of the planet Komm."

"Jenna Stannis," she responded. "Well, Chalsa, I'm a little confused by all this. What exactly did I do to earn your friendship?"

"Nothing at all," the man said smoothly, then with a nod in the direction of the dead body, "Now try asking what _he_ did to earn my hostility."

Jenna chuckled. "I'm not sure I want to know."

"I'll tell you anyway."

"Yes, I had a feeling you might."

Chalsa smiled. "Not here, though. The surroundings somehow lack civility."

 _This whole planet lacks civility. Better not say that to him, though, till I've sorted out what his connection with the place is._ She scooped up her gun and followed her rescuer from the room.

Downstairs they stopped at the desk to report a dead body in Room 313. When Jenna saw that Chalsa's explanation of the incident as self-defense was accepted without question, she added a warning about the explosive collar. Then they went to the lounge, took a table and ordered drinks.

The enigmatic Verlis was still there, and she and Chalsa nodded greetings to one another across the room.

"You know her?" Jenna queried.

"Oh yes, Verlis and I go back a long way. She's always treated my agents with scrupulous fairness."

"Your agents?" Jenna echoed, as the meaning of his words began to sink in.

"Yes, the Royal House of Komm purchases all its slaves on Domo."

"I see." She tried to conceal any show of disgust by hiding her face behind her drinking glass.

"It is the only planet within reasonable traveling distance where such commerce is available."

"Of course." By now she'd recovered herself. "But there isn't an auction scheduled any time soon, to my understanding, and even if there were, surely the ruler of Komm needn't attend to such commerce himself."

Chalsa laughed. "No, my stop here was just a courtesy call. I'm en route to a conference on Xenon. It was simply a matter of luck that Tarvin was here at the same time. Even more so that Verlis observed you headed for his room and rang my room with the information."

"She knew there was bad blood between you two."

"Yes, and I hadn't realized he was staying here when I arrived this morning. He didn't use his real name on the hotel register."

"And Verlis chose to tell you when I became involved because she thought I might be in trouble?"

Again Chalsa laughed. "No, she chose to tell me when you became involved because she thought _he_ might be distracted."

Jenna choked on her drink and hurriedly reached for a napkin. Regaining her composure, she murmured slyly, "If you hadn't just saved my life, I might find that insulting."

"But I did," Chalsa parried flirtatiously.

"So why did Tarvin deserve to die at your hands? Mind you, I'm not suggesting he didn't."

"I'm a warlord. Tarvin was a pirate. He and his Amagon brigands have been preying on my fleet for years."

"And it's taken you all this time to exact retribution?"

"Until recently I chose not to move against him."

"Why?"

"Until recently he was hurting my enemies more than me."

"And now?"

"Now it's possible those enemies may soon be allies – if the conference I'm headed for bears fruit."

"It sounds important."

"It is. All the non-aligned planets in our region have been invited: Tarl, Heerriol, Lovus –even Betafarl."

Jenna frowned, trying to picture the celestial geography of it. She vaguely recalled a Federation broadcast that Deva had monitored some weeks earlier, boasting about the new empire's expansion amongst the border states. Same neck of the galaxy Chalsa was referring to.  Despite her decision to opt out of revolutionary politics, she found herself interested and decided to encourage her companion in his charming, if transparent, effort to impress her. 

"But you said the conference was to be held on Xenon."

"I did, didn't I?" The man sounded slightly peeved with himself, as if what he really meant was: I oughtn't to have done.

"And I've never heard of Xenon," Jenna continued. "Which warlord rules it?"

"No – warlord," Chalsa answered uncomfortably. "It's merely where our host has his base. It's – supposed to be confidential."

"I won't tell anyone," Jenna promised, refilling his glass from the bottle on the table between them. "Your host's an enemy of the Federation, isn't he? Well, I'm an enemy of the Federation. In fact, Tarvin was going to turn me in to the Federation. I've a price on my head."  _That's it. Show him you trust him, so he'll trust you in return. He's too wealthy to be tempted by the bounty for himself – I hope._ She lifted her own glass and licked the rim of it suggestively. "So, who exactly is this mysterious host of yours?"

*          *          *          *          *          *          *

"... And then one night two off-worlders arrived in search of information about some new Federation weapon. I ran into them just as they were about to run into a pack of Federation troopers. I explained about Pylene-50, about how our entire population was being rounded up and inoculated with the drug, how only a few columns of resistance fighters like myself has managed to elude that fate. Before they left Helotrix, they'd more than repaid the favor: they exposed a double agent in our ranks, and they obtained samples of a vaccine that could be used to immunize people against the effects of the pacification drug."

"They sound like the answer to a rebel's prayer," Blake said. "Who were they? Where did they come from?"

"Well, where they came from is a question in its own right. They used something called a teleport to move from their ship to the surface and back again."

Blake's eyes widened. "The _Liberator_! It must have been the _Liberator_!"

"No, their ship was called the _Scorpio_. They'd had a ship called _Liberator_ at one time, but they lost it." Hunda spoke slowly and carefully, straining to recall what the off-worlders had told him in those hours of darkness they'd spent hiding together.

"'Lost it'? What the hell do you mean 'lost it'?"

"It blew up. It was damaged by some kind of fluid particles they'd been exposed to, and it broke apart. Fortunately, they'd all managed to get off safely first. Although – "

"Although what?" Blake demanded.

"Well, they did say they lost a crew member a short time afterward."

Blake's heart lurched in his chest. "Who?" _Please, God, don't let it be..._

"I'm sorry, Blake. They never told me her name."

 _Her name?_

"They did say that she was a telepath."

 _Cally then. It had to be Cally._ A wave of pain coursed through him. _Oh, Cally..._ And then, unbidden, horrifying him, a wave of relief. _But at least it wasn't..._

"Did they tell you _their_ names?" he asked.

"Yes, the man was Del Tarrant, and the woman was Dayna Mellanby."

The name Tarrant he recognized from Orac's final conversation with him as Deva's ship had followed _Liberator_ to Sarran. The name Mellanby he didn't recognize, but Orac had mentioned a woman coming aboard from Sarran with Avon... "And the rest of the crew?" he inquired tensely.

Hunda knit his brow, struggling to remember. "There were crew waiting for them on _Scorpio_ , but I don't think they ever mentioned them by name. Wait a minute. Yes – they did mention one." He looked up. "Someone from the ship tried to contact them over the communicators in their teleport bracelets while we were hiding from the guards. Tarrant clapped his hand over his bracelet to muffle the sound of the man's voice, and then when the danger had passed, he said something like, 'Avon certainly picks his moments'."

Blake's face brightened. "Avon," he repeated. "You're positive he said Avon?"

"Well – yes."

For an instant a smile lit up that scarred face which Hunda would have sworn rivalled the most brilliant star he'd ever seen. Then, to the Helot's bewilderment, it was replaced by a terrible darkness, a black void frightening to behold. For Blake was somewhere else: remembering the _last_ time he'd asked someone for confirmation of Avon's name, remembering the way Hob had used the final moments of his life and the final remnants of his fading strength to spit out contemptuously: "The interloper..."

Hunda reached out from his bed and gently nudged Blake's arm, causing the man to jump. "You all right?" he asked.

Blake pulled himself back to the present. "Yes, of course. So tell me, how did you manage to hook up with Avalon?"

Hunda chuckled. "That's a long story – and a fairly recent one."

"It wasn't through A– through the _Scorpio_ people, by any chance?"

"No, I don't think they're even in contact with her, with any of the coordinated resistance network."

"No, he wouldn't be," Blake murmured. _But still, if what Hunda says is true, he's fighting the Federation..._

"I beg your pardon?"

"Sorry. So how did you and she get together?"

"Well, originally, Helotrix was fighting on its own. And we'd been planning to blow up the Federation's communication center on the planet. But we ended up taking it over instead – for awhile, anyway, and during that time – Blake, are you even listening to me?"

"Yes, of course," the other answered – and then proved he hadn't been by continuing, "So your alliance with Avalon was forged after Servalan was killed on Gedden."

Hunda sighed. "Killed on Gedden? What are you talking about? Servalan was on Helotrix the same time Tarrant and Dayna were. I saw her with my own eyes. I didn't know who she was, but Dayna clearly did. I don't know what she's doing now, or what name she's doing it under, but, Blake, Servalan certainly isn't dead."

*          *          *          *          *          *          *

"Servalan isn't dead?" Jenna exclaimed. "You know that for a fact?"

"Positively." The warlord's speech was starting to slur as he downed yet another drink. He reached across the table and took Jenna's hand familiarly. "That's a secret, too, of course," he whispered. "Only that's _her_ secret. Avon's _our_ secret."

"Avon, yes." She still couldn't quite take it in. When Chalsa had first uttered the name in response to her probing about the secret base on Xenon, she'd thought she must have heard him wrong, thought she was suffering from a bout of post-traumatic brain warp, brought on by her recent brush with death. But then he'd repeated it – spelled it, in fact – spelled it rather loudly, in fact – so loudly that she had looked around in alarm for fear he might have been overheard.

The very idea of it made her head reel: Avon actively organizing a campaign against the Federation, recruiting allies, inviting them to clandestine meetings – in a word, _Avon_ _emulating Blake._

And what she was hearing now was only slightly less remarkable. "Verlis told me," Chalsa confided. "Told me she recognized the woman when she came here months ago to purchase slaves. She goes by the name of Sleer now, Servalan does. She's a Security Commissioner."

"Bit of a comedown for her, wouldn't you say, after being Supreme Commander and President of the Terran Federation?"

"Still a lot better than being dead," Chalsa pointed out. "Anyway, Verlis played along with her, didn't let on that she knew. Verlis is far too smart to make a mistake like that. A mistake like that could be lethal." Suddenly Chalsa's hand lost its grip on hers, and the First Lord of Komm slumped across the table, snoring like a Tarsian grampazon.

Jenna got up quietly and made her way outside, grateful for a chance to clear her head in the cool evening air. Watching the sun slip beneath Domo's sandy horizon, she told herself that what she'd learned from Chalsa didn't change anything. Not for her personally since she'd resolved that she wasn't going back. Not to the rebellion. And certainly not to Blake.

But even as she said it again in her mind, she knew that it wasn't true. She _was_ going back. She _had_ to go back now: at least long enough to make sure Blake knew that Servalan was alive, and that Avon – cold, nasty, self-centered Avon – was behaving like the rebel Blake had always yearned for him to be.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *

Blake arrived back at the Dispatch Center with every muscle in his body aching. Despite Deva's protest (and Hunda's) that it was too risky, he had insisted on personally escorting the Helot to the rendezvous point to meet his pickup ship.

Unable to take a flyer – because unwilling to chance Hunda's being seen by any of the regular personnel who worked around the landing silos – they'd been forced to travel on foot. The Star Rover had not yet arrived when the two rebels reached the rendezvous so Hunda settled in to wait in a nearby cave, carrying a communicator through which his people could contact him long before they got near enough to encounter the blockade. 

Deva had supplied him with the communications frequency currently being used by the gunships – information to which he, as ostensible administrator of the Dispatch Center, was privy, information which would enable the pilot of the Star Rover to eavesdrop on the gunships, pinpoint their location, and thus avoid detection.

Hunda was tough and had made the long trek without complaint though his injuries were not yet entirely healed. Blake was tough and uninjured, but he'd had twice the distance to travel. He yanked off his boots now with a grunt of exhaustion, peeled off his clothes, splashed water on his face and collapsed on his bed.

He needed a shower, but was too tired to care. He needed oblivion even more, but was too wrought up to surrender to it. The news Hunda had brought of Cally's death lay heavy on his heart, not yet assimilated. And, as always, knowledge of a new death conjured up memories of the old... 

Blake stared at the ceiling and watched the faces of ghosts past parade before his sleep-starved eyes:

His brother and sister – killed because he'd dared to challenge the Federation...

The more than two dozen comrades he'd unwittingly led into Travis's ambush...

An indeterminate number of comrades he'd been tricked into betraying by the masters of memory manipulation...

Bran Foster. Dal Ritchie. Ravella. Tel Varon...

The prisoners on the _London_ murdered by Raiker...

The prisoners on Cygnus Alpha murdered by Vargas...

Kasabi. LeGrand...

And two whose faces loomed larger than all of these: one old throbbing wound he'd never fully stopped mourning, and this fresh one he hadn't yet taken the time to mourn...

He saw himself standing with his arm around her in the teleport bay. Heard her thanking him for coming back to Centero, heard himself say, "Too many of my friends are already dead. I can't afford to lose another one."

 _But I did, didn't I, Cally? A year later I lost Gan. Sweet, gentle, pure-hearted Gan who raked me over the coals for contemplating a deal with the Terra Nostra and considered it murder to dispose of an alien craft crawling with homicidal maniacs._

 _And now, you_. _If I'd returned to the Liberator, would you still be alive? Would_ _the Liberator still be intact?_

But it had seemed so right at the time. The Federation at its weakest in the wake of the Andromedan invasion. Sula Chesku strategically placed to coordinate the coup against Servalan. Jenna and himself hidden on an inconspicuous frontier planet, waiting for that first crucial card in the deck to fall. How could they have anticipated – how could they possibly have imagined – the turn fate would take?

 _Except it wasn't "fate", was it? You never believed in "fate", did you, Avon? Or in anything else, for that matter. Or so you claimed..._

"Show me someone who believes in anything, and I'll show you a fool." The sneering, sardonic voice floated back to him. _Maybe I should have listened to you, Avon. Maybe the last words I spoke to you simply attached that label to me forever in your mind._

On the vis-screen of the ceiling, two figures stood at the end of the corridor leading onto _Liberator_ 's flight deck. "What's the matter? Couldn't you bring yourself to trust me just this once?"

"Avon, for what it is worth: I have always trusted you – from the very beginning."

Blake swore silently and shut off the vis-play in his mind. Could he really have been that wrong about the man? And why had he never breathed a word of what Hob had revealed to him that day to another living soul? There was that tempting tidbit from Hunda about his meeting with Tarrant and Dayna on Helotrix – it implied that Avon was still actively fighting the Federation. Dare he believe it? But even if he did believe it, he hadn't known it _before_. Hadn't even suspected it all these months that he'd been keeping the truth about what happened at Servalan's residence that day a secret...

So why _had_ he kept it a secret? Startled by this question he'd never before asked himself, Blake sat upright, his heart beating faster. Was it out of embarrassment? Had he been trying to protect his reputation, or even his self-esteem, by concealing such blatant evidence of his own poor judgment? Was that why he'd never told Jenna – or Deva – or anyone? Had he grown so petty that he was prepared to see steadily thickening walls spring up between himself and his closest associates and do nothing to tear them down? Good God, wasn't that precisely what he'd always been appalled to watch Avon do?

"No," he whispered, shaking his head. "No way." But if that wasn't his motive for remaining silent, then what was? 

Slowly a second possibility began to form at the back of his mind: Was it remotely conceivable that he'd been _protecting Avon?_ All this time? Even after the man had done _that_ to the rebellion – inflicted such incalculable, irreparable damage? 

Well if so, the cynical bastard had been right about him from the start: He was, indeed, nothing but a sentimental fool, with mangon where his brains belonged.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *

Jenna stepped onto the flight deck, slipped into the pilot's seat and switched the ship from automatic back to manual control. She had just completed her last 6-hour sleep shift on the journey from Domo to Gauda Prime, insuring that she'd be refreshed and alert during her final approach to the planet.

Ascertaining that no course corrections were needed and that all the ship's systems were functioning at full capacity, she allowed herself to reflect upon her decision to return. 

It was definitely the news about Avon that had tipped the scales. The information about Servalan was valuable, and Blake would be grateful to have it, but it wouldn't really change anything for him; personal vendettas had never been his style.

But the news about Avon – ah, that could change everything. "Maybe when you learn that he's taken up your crusade in earnest, it will crack that crust you've let grow around your heart." _And maybe if it does, I'll want to follow you again._

 

"Xenon, Blake," she whispered, as if rehearsing the moment when she would make a gift of it to him. "Avon is on the planet Xenon." _If you know where he is, maybe you'll leave Gauda Prime and go after him. And if you get him back, maybe you won't have to be so hard anymore because then you'll have him again to be hard for you._  

The irony of the thought brought a bitter laugh to her lips. Was that really what the separation between them had led to – Blake "becoming" Avon and Avon "becoming" Blake? Jenna shuddered. It didn't bear thinking about...

And now she had no time to think about anything because the familiar blue sphere of Gauda Prime was filling her view-screen. She reached for the control panel and set her communications console to the frequency currently being used by the planetary blockade.

 

In the tracking gallery at the Dispatch Center, Deva was engaging in a routine examination of computer readouts. Klyn was engaging in a similarly routine scan of the space traffic transiting the area. There'd been no conversation between them for some time, no sound at all except the hum of the computers and instrument panels.

Deva's eyes moved smoothly along the tape that was printing out in his hands and then jerked as an unexpected anomaly caught his attention. "Oh, no!" he exclaimed, a look of horror overspreading his face.

At almost exactly the same instant, Klyn spotted an anomaly of her own. "You'd better call Blake," she said. "Hunda's in trouble."

 

Awakened from the restless sleep he'd finally managed to fall into, Blake came tearing into the tracking gallery, still buttoning his shirt. "What is it? What's going on?"

"The gunships have spotted Hunda," Klyn replied.

"What?! Are you sure?"

"There's no mistaking that Star Rover." She stepped to one side so that he could see what she was seeing on the screen. "And there's no mistaking that familiar formation approaching it."

"But how? He knew where they'd be!"

"No, he didn't," Deva cut in, a ribbon of computer tape still in his hands. "The frequency was rotated this morning. The word just came down."

"Damn!" Blake slammed his fist hard against the console.

"What about Jenna?" Klyn said suddenly. "Isn't she due back any time now?"

Blake gestured dismissively. "Jenna knows the drill. She'll be able to cope. Hunda doesn't –he'd have had no _idea_ what other frequencies to try..."

 

Jenna did, indeed, "know the drill." When the frequency she'd tuned to first yielded only static, she surmised that the blockade had implemented one of its periodic frequency changes and calmly set about cycling through the lot of them. She found it on the fourth or fifth try – but her calmness quickly faded when she realized the import of the conversation she'd barged in on...

//Hey, Varl, get a load of that blast from the past.//

//Why, I do believe it's a genuine Star Rover.//

 _Star Rover?_ That had to be Hunda. A quick mental calculation confirmed that this was, indeed, the day Hunda had been scheduled to leave.

//I do believe it's in GP spacelanes without authorization,// responded the pilot of the first gunship.

"Computer," Jenna barked, "pinpoint the source of that signal and give me long-range visual." 

The resulting display revealed Hunda's ship surrounded by half a dozen Gauda Prime gunships. The SR-14 was oriented away from the planet's surface, so she knew it was in takeoff mode, so she knew Hunda was already on board.

//Shall we blow it out of the sky?// asked a third voice.

//Not unless you want to join it,// bellowed yet another – from the ring of authority to it, obviously the leader's. //I want to salvage that antique. I know a space museum on Teal that would pay a pretty parcel of credits for a specimen like that.//

//Force her down then, is it, Captain?//

//You've got it, Varl.//

As the lead ship instructed the rest of the fleet, Jenna knew she had to intervene. Hunda was important to the resistance. Blake had said so. And now with Avon on the verge of uniting the non-aligned planets, it was possible the resistance just might have a real chance at success...

And besides all that, Hunda had been inside the Dispatch Center. He knew Blake's role in it. He knew Blake's true identity. If they took him alive, he might be made to reveal what he knew.

 _No way, Mates. No way in hell._ She leaned on the throttle for all she was worth, heading straight for the center of the impending melee...

 

The trio in the tracking gallery watched the unfolding action on their vis-screen with mounting tension. Watched as an eighth ship with a wholly different configuration suddenly appeared out of nowhere and opened fire.

"Where the hell did that one come from?" Deva shouted. "And how did it move that fast?"

"A Mark 10 could move that fast," Klyn said somberly.

"Maximum magnification!" Blake ordered.

Deva hit the appropriate button, and the resulting image turned their speculation into certainty.

"Jenna," Blake breathed.

 

Jenna realized that Hunda couldn't help her. The SR-14 carried no armaments, and the chances were they had no idea who she was anyway. Indeed, if Hunda and his people had any sense, they wouldn't stick around long enough to find out. They would seize the opportunity she was offering them by distracting their assailants and hightail it to Helotrix through the first hole she managed to punch in the Gauda Prime formation.

But it wasn't going to be easy. The gunships were firing back en masse, and every moment her shields were up to deflect them was a moment in which she could not get a shot off herself.

Predictably, the fleet split: four of them returning her fire and two continuing to close in on Hunda. She had no alternative now; she would have to accept some damage in order to give the Star Rover its chance. Dropping her shields, she dove beneath the nearer four and aimed for the other two...

 

Deva let out a cry of exaltation as two blips on the screen became balls of fire – then gasped as Jenna's craft took a glancing hit from one of the remaining four. Yet instead of retreating, the ship shifted altitude and advanced on its opponents once more.

"I don't understand," Klyn muttered between clenched teeth. "That's a bloody Mark 10 she's flying. She can put half a star system between herself and those gunships if she wants to."

"But she doesn't want to," said Blake, his eyes glued to the screen. "That's not what she's doing."

"So what the hell is she doing?" Deva demanded, as the Mark 10 took a second hit and began to wobble.

"Leading them away from Hunda," Blake said.

"But she can't expect to outshoot them all," moaned Klyn. "Not half a squadron."

 

Jenna no longer expected to outshoot anyone. That second hit had torn a hole in her ship's main stabilizer, and the backup system offered only limited maneuverability. There was still some chance she could outrun them, pull out of range and then nurse the Mark 10 through a controlled landing on soft terrain.

But the remaining ships still had Hunda in their sights, and there was no chance _he_ could outrun them. If she abandoned him to save herself, they would succeed in their intention to force him down.

With all her pilot's cunning, she set about feigning greater damage than she'd actually sustained: She opened her fuel pod and vented enough of the contents to convince her adversaries that they'd shattered that critical structure.

As she watched the stream she'd released become a white plume floating upon the black ocean of space, a sudden longing to see Blake one last time swept over her, and hot tears trickled down her cheeks. She accepted that it wasn't going to happen. Accepted that they'd never see one another again. That Blake would never find out about Avon and Xenon, never have that reason to leave Gauda Prime. _But at least he'll be alive..._

As her craft's exaggerated posture of helplessness lured the unsuspecting gunships into her trap, her finger inched toward the self-destruct button...

 

In horror Blake watched the crippled Mark 10 coaxing those four ships progressively closer. "Don't," he whimpered brokenly. "Don't do it, Jenna. Please don't do it."

For one desperate moment, the need to prevent the catastrophe unfolding before his eyes blotted out everything else. He grabbed at the communications console and opened a surface-to-ship link...

The moment passed. The link went unused. A living tableau of agony, he stood there with clenched fists, repeating over and over again, "Can't. I can't. I can't. I can't..."

An instant later the vis-screen lit up like a supernova.

Blake sank to his knees, threw back his head and screamed Jenna's name in a wail that went on for as long as the explosions did...

Klyn watched the tiny blip that was the Star Rover move safely off the screen. "I don't understand," she whispered tearfully to Deva. "All he had to do was talk to her. If she'd heard his voice, she'd have come to her senses. Why did he stop himself like that? Why didn't he stop her?"

"Because," Deva replied, close to tears himself, "if she'd heard him, the gunships would have, too. He couldn't risk their finding out that someone from here was an ally of someone who was shooting at them."

"Oh God." The woman gazed at Blake with pity and awe.

The rebel leader was silent now: silent and dry-eyed and stiff as stone. Without looking up, he asked, "Did Hunda get away?"

"Yes, Blake," Klyn said softly.

"Good," said Blake. "That's something salvaged anyway."

But was it enough? Hob's last words had been, "It wasn't enough", and they'd rung with the same crushing sense of futility and waste which haunted his own heart now.

He'd loved Jenna. Maybe not the way she'd wanted him to, but he'd loved her. When they'd been stranded on the _Liberator_ together during Zen's shutdown, he'd made saving her life a higher priority than saving his own. And at Central Security Headquarters on Earth, he'd thrown her out of the path of Lars's knife, resulting in the injury which had scarred and partially blinded him. Yet in the end, when it came to a choice between her and the rebellion, he'd sacrificed her...

Maybe he should have given her the love she'd wanted. Maybe he should have given both of them that respite from the nightmare they'd so frequently lived. If he had, would that have made this ending any easier? Or would that, in fact, have made it harder? Or would that, in fact, have made it impossible?

Right now he found it unbearable to be with Klyn and Deva, to see the compassion in their eyes, a compassion he doubted he deserved. They reached out for him, wanting to console him, but he waved them off. "Sorry – can't – need to be alone – "

He stumbled to his room in a fog of grief and guilt. His bed provided no more haven from hurt this time than last – the only difference being that this time he'd brought the newest addition to the ghost parade back with him. In the silence and solitude that surrounded him there, a voice from the past broke through, intoning: "One more death will do it..."

You were right, Avon, he answered in his mind. You were finally right. You just didn't understand _how_ you were going to be right. 

He pulled the blankets tight around him, shut his eyes against the steadily mounting anguish. _And, God help me, neither did I._

*          *          *          *          *          *          *

For a brief instant, Deva failed to recognize the fearsome-looking figure standing at the entrance to the tracking gallery, fully attired and armed for the hunt. For a minute he thought that Tando or someone equally soulless had penetrated the inner sanctum of the rebels' dual operation. When he finally realized who it was, he did not feel the least bit relieved.

"What are you doing here?" he blurted.

"I work here, remember?" Cold as ice crystals from the polar caps of Albian. "Although I haven't been, have I, for what – a week now?" He strode across the floor, and Deva's eyes followed him in silent alarm. "So I thought it was time to get back to business."

"There's no hurry."

"There's no reason to procrastinate either."

"Blake – "

"I'm all right."

"The hell you are! I've never seen you looking worse." His voice quivered, and when he reached for a drinking cup on the table in front of him, his hands shook.

"Afraid of me, Deva?" the other mocked mildly.

"Afraid _for_ you!"

"I'm touched." The rebel leader strolled over to the computer and began thumbing through a stack of plastic data sheets.

"It was a choice, Blake," Deva said staunchly. "Jenna made a choice – a bloody, rotten, horrible, heroic choice."

"She wasn't the only one," Blake mumbled.

"You did what you had to do – what she would have expected you to do."

Blake slapped the data sheets down with a loud thud. "You think so? Well, let me clue you in on something, Deva. Because there's something you're not aware of. Jenna was leaving."

Deva blinked. "Leaving?"

"Yes! Leaving me – us – the rebellion – all this. That trip to Domo was to have been her last run."

The blink became a wide-eyed stare.

Blake smiled unpleasantly. "Makes a difference, doesn't it?"

Deva let out a breath he hadn't even realized he was holding. "Still, when it came to the final crunch, she opted to save Hunda and protect our lives rather than her own."

"Sure looks that way." Blake began fiddling with the data sheets again. "I wonder if she had that Amagon on board with her. I wonder if she chose death for him as well." Then, with a humorless chuckle, "At least she won't have to live with what that feels like."

"Blake – "

"She wasn't the first, you know. Did you imagine she was the first? Oh no, you could fill a graveyard with them all." Another hollow laugh. "You could fill a graveyard."

"It must be so hard..." Deva started, then broke off, his effort to express empathy sounding stupidly inadequate to his own ears.

"I would have died for any one of them," Blake declared. "Instead, they died for me. Or because of me."

"Blake, the ones who died for you – it's what they wanted."

" _I_ didn't want it!"

"Haven't you always said our wants are irrelevant?"

"I was wrong."

"No. You weren't. Blake, I would die for you."

"Don't say that!"

"Why not? It's the truth. And Klyn would, and – "

"Stop it! No more!" Deva flinched and shrunk back from the power in the other man's voice. "Jenna was the last," Blake said fiercely. "No matter what, I refuse to be responsible for the death of another friend. Next time it will be _my_ life that's forfeit first."

"You can't run a rebellion that way – "

"I can't run a rebellion at all! Or so it seems lately. Or haven't you noticed?" He finally made his selection from amongst the data sheets and held it out. "This one."

Deva took it reluctantly and began processing it through the computer. "What about Hunda's warning?" he asked as he worked.

"What about it?" Blake echoed indifferently.

"Don't you think it might be a good idea to slow things down for awhile?"

"Why?"

Deva abandoned the argument. If Blake didn't know why – or more likely and worse, didn't care why – it was pointless to push it. "Here you go," he said, removing the revised data sheet which the computer returned to him. "Last known location and projected movements for the subject in question and official authorization to hunt."

"Thank you." Blake accepted the sheet and turned to leave.

Deva looked at the data still on the screen. "A woman this time," he remarked with surprise.

"What's the difference?" Blake called back over his shoulder.

Alone once more, Deva finished logging the information for the search-and-capture mission about to commence.

Next to BOUNTY HUNTER he entered the name: EVAN FOSTER.

Next to QUARRY he entered the name: MARITZA ARLEN.

 

"I shall not murder  
The mankind of her going with a grave truth  
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath  
With any further  
Elegy of innocence and youth...

After the first death, there is no other."  
                                  -- Dylan Thomas


End file.
